911.
A Bed-Quilt; ground, green silk; design, in the middle the goddess Flora, around her large flowers and branches, amid which are birds (doves?), and hares climbing up the boughs, all in floss-silk of very showy colours, with a deep border of flowers, worked upon dark net. Italian, 18th century. 8 feet 3 inches by 6 feet.
Such coverlets were, as they still are, used for throwing over beds in the day-time. The flowers, both on the silk and the netting, are so embroidered as to show the same, like East Indian needlework, on both sides. The love for lively colour, not to say garishness, was such as to lead the hand that wrought this piece to render the branches of some of the parts parti-coloured in white and crimson. Other specimens of embroidered net may be seen at Nos. [623], [624], [4462].
